A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution
In the piece which follows, I will attempt to provide some background on an evolutionary theory which I have been thinking about for much of my adult life. It will be published by University of Buckingham Press in February next year.
I submit that A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution is the first genuine rival to Darwin’s theory that natural selection drives evolution. It argues that indigenous variation, not external selection, is the key to evolution. Using a priori reasoning and applying this principle systematically, I was able to predict key features of the genome as early as March 2000 — in particular, a preponderance of inert or silent genes, and the dominant contribution of the silent genes to mutational variation.
I was also able to predict, against the prevailing beliefs of the time, that silent genes could be “switched on” by random processes, and that in their silent (i.e. non-coding) state they could influence other genes (recently verified by research on the HAR1 gene sequence, amongst others).
In the course of writing A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution I have been encouraged by two distinguished physicists, professors Freeman Dyson and Donald Braben. Freeman Dyson, as many of you will know, is one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, and is professor emeritus at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. He wrote, “I like your theory, and think it has a good chance of being right.” He has also supplied a splendid cover quote for the forthcoming book: “Darwin would have liked your theory.” Perhaps it takes a great physicist to pack that amount of mischief into only six words.
Donald Braben, a nuclear physicist by training, who has overseen a series of highly successful scientific research programmes at British Telecom, responded, “Your theory has the ring of truth … Hierarchically speaking, variation is of greater significance than selection. I agree, therefore, that if silent gene theory were proved correct, it would be the more complete theory, as Einstein’s is compared with Newton’s.”
My own background as an evolutionary theorist, I would be the first to admit, is somewhat unlikely. I am a novelist with nine novels published to date. My formal education in science is small. I was a biology undergraduate at Sussex University, where my tutor was Professor John Maynard Smith. My break with biology began when in 1975, as a student, I proposed to Maynard Smith that variation, and not adaptation, was the key to evolution. I quoted Darwin to the effect that “… unless profitable variations do occur, natural selection can do nothing.” It seemed to me that the chief problem is that natural selection, far from generating variation, acts to reduce variation in favour of an evolutionary optimum for any given environment. If natural selection consumes variation, what replenishes variation throughout evolutionary systems?
Maynard Smith asked me why I did not believe that mutation of the coding genes could supply variation. I said that I had two objections. Non-deleterious mutation in the coding genes occurred on such a small scale that it couldn’t remotely counteract the constant variation-reducing effects of natural selection. In addition, there was a major technical problem. The difference between one coding gene and its closest relation was usually not a single mutation but many, sometimes hundreds or thousands of mutations. Mathematically the chances of all the intermediate mutations occurring at once was vanishingly small. Slow accumulation of mutations (which is much more likely) is also problematic when applied to coding genes, because the intermediate stages are likely to be deleterious (since the great majority of mutations are deleterious). The problem of “intermediate deleterious mutations” seemed to me the most crucial problem, and one which an effective theory of variation should solve.
Maynard Smith asked me whether I had a “strong” theory of variation, and I responded that I did not. But I asked him whether I could look for one.
In proposing that I search for a theory of variation, I seemed to have stepped over an invisible line. Maynard Smith responded that he believed that I had a promising career as an evolutionary biologist, but that I should understand evolutionary biology existed under the umbrella of the theory of natural selection. If I proceeded to question that central tenet, I would be “outside the umbrella”, and he for one would oppose me. Not an angry word was spoken between us, but I knew the writing was on the wall if I wished to pursue my interest within a discipline in which evolutionary theory was dominated by Maynard Smith. I left biology within two months, and have never regretted my decision.
Since then, during my career as a novelist, in my spare time I thought constantly about a strong theory of variation. In March 2000 I approached the subject again and wrote a paper proposing a new class of theoretical gene, called a “silent” gene, whose key feature was that it did not code, and was in this sense inert. Because it was inert, it could slowly gather mutations over time without any detrimental effect on the host organism. Such theoretical silent genes solved the technical problem of intermediate deleterious mutations in the coding genes. When eventually switched on by random processes, the accumulated mutations would be likely to be detrimental, like any other mutation. But silent genes, because they could mutate indefinitely without damaging the host organism, offered infinitely more pathways to exotic new mutations.
In March 2000 I decided to send the paper to my former tutor, who was then 80 and professor emeritus, and ask him whether he had ever encountered a silent gene. Expecting a flea in my ear or at the least an eloquent silence, I was pleasantly surprised when Maynard Smith replied. He wrote that he remembered me and liked parts of my theory. He said that my theoretical silent genes corresponded in key particulars to the “junk” genes, which until then had been a mystery, and which constituted approximately 97% percent of the genome. The part of my theory that Maynard disagreed with was that a silent or junk gene could in due course be switched on and become a coding gene. As far as he knew, there were no known examples of silent or “junk” genes becoming coding genes.
Within a year of Maynard Smith’s objection in good faith there were four examples in the literature of silent genes becoming coding genes, and since then there has been a stream of further examples.
Research since 2000 has verified a genome almost precisely as I specified through a priori reasoning, with nearly all significant mutation emerging from the silent or non-coding genes. Superior predictive capacity concerning the structure and functions of key elements of the genome is only one aspect of the scope of silent gene theory, however. It is also more powerful than the theory of natural selection in predicting major features of the evolutionary landscape. To give an example, all complex multicellular animals derive from the eukaryote genome, and all eukaryotes are characterised by an extremely high preponderance of silent genes. There is therefore a 100% correlation between high numbers of silent genes and the fast evolution associated with eukaryotes.
By contrast prokaryotes (mainly bacteria) have been in existence for over 3 billion years, and no multicellular organism has ever developed from a prokaryote. This is highly anomalous in terms of classical Darwinian theory. Vast numbers of prokaryotes reproducing at high rates in a huge range of physical environments over aeons of time should generate significant evolution. By contrast silent gene theory predicts that prokaryotes, because they are characterised by low rates of silent genes, are likely to remain relatively stable or static in evolutionary terms.
Silent gene theory also predicts a radical rearrangement of evolutionary forces. While silent genes drive complex evolution, generating variation and therefore new species, natural selection is largely negative, destructive or entropic. Natural selection, far from being the origin of species, is responsible for thinning variation and for natural rates of extinction.
Setting aside the technical aspects of A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution, I submit that there are likely to be several potentially important and socially benign consequences of silent gene theory.
The fact that the first genuine evolutionary rival to Darwin should arise from a maverick novelist — rather than, say, a professional biologist — opens up the whole question of the relation between scientific and artistic creativity which was addressed by C. P. Snow. Where Snow bitterly lamented the lack of understanding and communication between the “two cultures”, the story of silent gene theory suggests their underlying similarity.
For what it is worth I support the Popperian notion that the most effective scientific theories are works of profound imagination, and that even at the heart of empirical science — to use Popper’s phrase — “all knowledge is tentative”. As imaginative constructs, scientific theories and effective fictional narratives seem to me to be brothers under the skin. On this subject, it could be argued that one of the reasons that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has predominated for 150 years is that it is a beautiful narrative — clear and coherent and inspiring.
On a related subject, although Darwin was the most gentle of souls, it is difficult to argue against the view that the theory of natural selection and its interpretations (such as “the survival of the fittest”) have been used at various times to justify Social Darwinism, the crudest and cruelest human eugenics, Nazism, fascism, and some of the more predatory forms of capitalism, amongst other ideologies. By pure coincidence, I admit, the notion that evolution is driven by silent genes — removed from the purview of natural selection acting on the phenotype and able to evolve more freely — suggests interpretations inclined towards liberalism or libertarianism rather than more militant ideologies.
In the longer term, I would also submit that silent gene theory — if the evidence continues to support it — is likely to be more attractive to many evolutionary sceptics or agnostics than the principle of nature red in tooth and claw.
To return to the silentgenetheory.com website, click on the heading of this blog. Recognising that readers have many demands on your time, before you commit yourself to downloading the full theory, I have written a longer 30-page introduction which gives the background to some of the arguments raised in the main part of the book. This can be read either online or downloaded for free.
If you wish to read more fully, you can download the full theory for £3.99 through the security of PayPal.
I submit that A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution is the first genuine rival to Darwin’s theory that natural selection drives evolution. It argues that indigenous variation, not external selection, is the key to evolution. Using a priori reasoning and applying this principle systematically, I was able to predict key features of the genome as early as March 2000 — in particular, a preponderance of inert or silent genes, and the dominant contribution of the silent genes to mutational variation.
I was also able to predict, against the prevailing beliefs of the time, that silent genes could be “switched on” by random processes, and that in their silent (i.e. non-coding) state they could influence other genes (recently verified by research on the HAR1 gene sequence, amongst others).
In the course of writing A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution I have been encouraged by two distinguished physicists, professors Freeman Dyson and Donald Braben. Freeman Dyson, as many of you will know, is one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, and is professor emeritus at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. He wrote, “I like your theory, and think it has a good chance of being right.” He has also supplied a splendid cover quote for the forthcoming book: “Darwin would have liked your theory.” Perhaps it takes a great physicist to pack that amount of mischief into only six words.
Donald Braben, a nuclear physicist by training, who has overseen a series of highly successful scientific research programmes at British Telecom, responded, “Your theory has the ring of truth … Hierarchically speaking, variation is of greater significance than selection. I agree, therefore, that if silent gene theory were proved correct, it would be the more complete theory, as Einstein’s is compared with Newton’s.”
My own background as an evolutionary theorist, I would be the first to admit, is somewhat unlikely. I am a novelist with nine novels published to date. My formal education in science is small. I was a biology undergraduate at Sussex University, where my tutor was Professor John Maynard Smith. My break with biology began when in 1975, as a student, I proposed to Maynard Smith that variation, and not adaptation, was the key to evolution. I quoted Darwin to the effect that “… unless profitable variations do occur, natural selection can do nothing.” It seemed to me that the chief problem is that natural selection, far from generating variation, acts to reduce variation in favour of an evolutionary optimum for any given environment. If natural selection consumes variation, what replenishes variation throughout evolutionary systems?
Maynard Smith asked me why I did not believe that mutation of the coding genes could supply variation. I said that I had two objections. Non-deleterious mutation in the coding genes occurred on such a small scale that it couldn’t remotely counteract the constant variation-reducing effects of natural selection. In addition, there was a major technical problem. The difference between one coding gene and its closest relation was usually not a single mutation but many, sometimes hundreds or thousands of mutations. Mathematically the chances of all the intermediate mutations occurring at once was vanishingly small. Slow accumulation of mutations (which is much more likely) is also problematic when applied to coding genes, because the intermediate stages are likely to be deleterious (since the great majority of mutations are deleterious). The problem of “intermediate deleterious mutations” seemed to me the most crucial problem, and one which an effective theory of variation should solve.
Maynard Smith asked me whether I had a “strong” theory of variation, and I responded that I did not. But I asked him whether I could look for one.
In proposing that I search for a theory of variation, I seemed to have stepped over an invisible line. Maynard Smith responded that he believed that I had a promising career as an evolutionary biologist, but that I should understand evolutionary biology existed under the umbrella of the theory of natural selection. If I proceeded to question that central tenet, I would be “outside the umbrella”, and he for one would oppose me. Not an angry word was spoken between us, but I knew the writing was on the wall if I wished to pursue my interest within a discipline in which evolutionary theory was dominated by Maynard Smith. I left biology within two months, and have never regretted my decision.
Since then, during my career as a novelist, in my spare time I thought constantly about a strong theory of variation. In March 2000 I approached the subject again and wrote a paper proposing a new class of theoretical gene, called a “silent” gene, whose key feature was that it did not code, and was in this sense inert. Because it was inert, it could slowly gather mutations over time without any detrimental effect on the host organism. Such theoretical silent genes solved the technical problem of intermediate deleterious mutations in the coding genes. When eventually switched on by random processes, the accumulated mutations would be likely to be detrimental, like any other mutation. But silent genes, because they could mutate indefinitely without damaging the host organism, offered infinitely more pathways to exotic new mutations.
In March 2000 I decided to send the paper to my former tutor, who was then 80 and professor emeritus, and ask him whether he had ever encountered a silent gene. Expecting a flea in my ear or at the least an eloquent silence, I was pleasantly surprised when Maynard Smith replied. He wrote that he remembered me and liked parts of my theory. He said that my theoretical silent genes corresponded in key particulars to the “junk” genes, which until then had been a mystery, and which constituted approximately 97% percent of the genome. The part of my theory that Maynard disagreed with was that a silent or junk gene could in due course be switched on and become a coding gene. As far as he knew, there were no known examples of silent or “junk” genes becoming coding genes.
Within a year of Maynard Smith’s objection in good faith there were four examples in the literature of silent genes becoming coding genes, and since then there has been a stream of further examples.
Research since 2000 has verified a genome almost precisely as I specified through a priori reasoning, with nearly all significant mutation emerging from the silent or non-coding genes. Superior predictive capacity concerning the structure and functions of key elements of the genome is only one aspect of the scope of silent gene theory, however. It is also more powerful than the theory of natural selection in predicting major features of the evolutionary landscape. To give an example, all complex multicellular animals derive from the eukaryote genome, and all eukaryotes are characterised by an extremely high preponderance of silent genes. There is therefore a 100% correlation between high numbers of silent genes and the fast evolution associated with eukaryotes.
By contrast prokaryotes (mainly bacteria) have been in existence for over 3 billion years, and no multicellular organism has ever developed from a prokaryote. This is highly anomalous in terms of classical Darwinian theory. Vast numbers of prokaryotes reproducing at high rates in a huge range of physical environments over aeons of time should generate significant evolution. By contrast silent gene theory predicts that prokaryotes, because they are characterised by low rates of silent genes, are likely to remain relatively stable or static in evolutionary terms.
Silent gene theory also predicts a radical rearrangement of evolutionary forces. While silent genes drive complex evolution, generating variation and therefore new species, natural selection is largely negative, destructive or entropic. Natural selection, far from being the origin of species, is responsible for thinning variation and for natural rates of extinction.
Setting aside the technical aspects of A Silent Gene Theory of Evolution, I submit that there are likely to be several potentially important and socially benign consequences of silent gene theory.
The fact that the first genuine evolutionary rival to Darwin should arise from a maverick novelist — rather than, say, a professional biologist — opens up the whole question of the relation between scientific and artistic creativity which was addressed by C. P. Snow. Where Snow bitterly lamented the lack of understanding and communication between the “two cultures”, the story of silent gene theory suggests their underlying similarity.
For what it is worth I support the Popperian notion that the most effective scientific theories are works of profound imagination, and that even at the heart of empirical science — to use Popper’s phrase — “all knowledge is tentative”. As imaginative constructs, scientific theories and effective fictional narratives seem to me to be brothers under the skin. On this subject, it could be argued that one of the reasons that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has predominated for 150 years is that it is a beautiful narrative — clear and coherent and inspiring.
On a related subject, although Darwin was the most gentle of souls, it is difficult to argue against the view that the theory of natural selection and its interpretations (such as “the survival of the fittest”) have been used at various times to justify Social Darwinism, the crudest and cruelest human eugenics, Nazism, fascism, and some of the more predatory forms of capitalism, amongst other ideologies. By pure coincidence, I admit, the notion that evolution is driven by silent genes — removed from the purview of natural selection acting on the phenotype and able to evolve more freely — suggests interpretations inclined towards liberalism or libertarianism rather than more militant ideologies.
In the longer term, I would also submit that silent gene theory — if the evidence continues to support it — is likely to be more attractive to many evolutionary sceptics or agnostics than the principle of nature red in tooth and claw.
To return to the silentgenetheory.com website, click on the heading of this blog. Recognising that readers have many demands on your time, before you commit yourself to downloading the full theory, I have written a longer 30-page introduction which gives the background to some of the arguments raised in the main part of the book. This can be read either online or downloaded for free.
If you wish to read more fully, you can download the full theory for £3.99 through the security of PayPal.
posted by Warwick at
08:13
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